oakley - your Easter plans sound very relaxing. trail & natal - thanks so much for sharing the recipes! busy - I've been seeing many gluten free recipes lately. Also, the bakery and every restaurant is now offering gluten free. I hope you find something easily. bonnie - thanks for the Costco tip. I may see if there are any stores near us. There are so many house prep things to do this morning, going to see how far I get. Thanks again it is a smarter idea to buy the entire rack and cut it myself. No wonder my butcher always seems sooo happy. tina - love that you're going out to your DS, The menu sounds wonderful. lukki - Welcome spring. I love your meal plan. bethpen - Some of DD's friends didn't come home for this Easter weekend at all. Their Easter breaks fell too close to the actual holiday this year. They were home last or the week before. I like your idea. Have to make the best of the situation. sherman - lemon cake with berries - you're making me hungry. sounds yummy. gscience - I can relate to the busy week. If I were you I would go out for the holiday. Thanks again for your replies. Still making progress... Hoping the owner of the globe grape app stops by. Found the grapes, but not sure what to do with them, lol.

I'm going to have to try that next time I have a small ham. I still have the 11.6 lb one in the freezer I have to do something with but that won't fit in my slowcooker. Our ham turned out well today - put foil in bottom of broiler pan, put in the ham and poured the juices from the shrink wrap over it, then brought foil up around it and sealed it tightly with double-folded seams. Warmed in preheated 325 oven for 45 min and then I was afraid my parents would be late (they weren't, but I was busy getting veggies done) so I turned the oven off and left it in another 30 min, it was very moist and not overly salty as I feared a non-smoked ham would be (and I got liquid on a scrape on my finger, so I know it WAS salted, though not salt-cured dry ham!). But it could have used some glaze or other flavoring IMHO - I think a little sugar/pineapple juice would have been nice. I hope the ham next Sunday is as good (I think I should freeze some of the leftovers, my parents only took a third of them, we're going to be tired of ham by next weekend!).

Hi Glenda and all, We had our Easter dinner today at Harry's sister's home. It was nice enough it have it outside so it was enjoyable. Wish you could have seen the food tables! When we got back to our room, I wrote down everything we had that I could remember. It looks like Marilyn_Sue's menu! Glenda, your pineapple casserole was a big hit. None of them had tasted it before and there was very little left. Ham Fried chicken Macaroni and cheese Squash casserole Potato salad (with onlon) Potato salad (w/o onion) Ditalini salad Green bean casserole Scalloped pineapple casserole Buffalo chicken dip with scoops Lettuce salad Deviled eggs 2 large relish trays Rolls Sweet tea Unsweetened tea Desserts: Peach cobbler 2 pecan pies Brownies 4-Day butter cake with coconut frosting (delicious) Marshmallow Whip cheesecake (Another cake???)

We had our dinner today. The ham was the best part, Elery smoked it about 10 hours, after 36 hours in brine, then half was served with a pineapple sauce and half without. We had baked beans, broccoli/cauliflower salad, green beans with bacon, whole wheat/butternut squash rolls, and Nancync's gluten free brioche, which came out very well: The coconut cake was decorated with Peeps and filled with coconut cream, then frosted with a coconut/cream cheese frosting: The kids were busy eating the chocolate that they found inside the Easter eggs, so they didn't want any other dessert. We got out the special Easter deviled egg plate and Mother's old Easter tablecloth from the 50s, we use it every year. We also had blueberry crisp and chocolate cream pie, but no one ate dessert except the Princess, who had this piece of cake. Everyone else ate too much ham! The only fail, and there's always one, were those blasted potatoes. Even though I don't like cheese and the Princess doesn't like sauced anything, I made au gratin. Found a recipe that called for heavy cream, gouda cheese, butter, garlic. Gotta be good, right? Two hours at 350 and the potatoes were still hard. Cranked the oven up to 450 for half an hour, still hard. Put them in the microwave for 15 minutes, the microwave overheated and died and those potatoes were still hard. We gave up on the potatoes, even with $15 worth of gouda and cream, and ate everything else. The girls split up the potatoes and took them home, they are going to try to cook them some more. Ugh, I didn't even want to look at them again and was going to compost them, but the girls couldn't pass up all that cheese, LOL. And so Elery and I took a trip into town and bought a new microwave after everyone went home. Annie